A Final Red Balloon
by l0stinl0ve
Summary: Right after the final battle, Luna remembers and mourns and celebrates life in the way only Luna can.


This was my first attempt at writing from Luna's perspective and I hope I did her justice. She is odd and she is eerie, and she is observant. There are so many facets to who she is that I've always feared I over-exaggerate the wrong facet and end up mocking her. I hope that I did not do that here. This was written for the DADA category for The School Subjects Competition on HPFC.

Enjoy, and please review =]

Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the HP-universe or the lyrics to the 99 Red Balloons song that you will find in here in bits and pieces.

* * *

It was over.

_Finally over_.

Luna stared at the rubble before her. Her home, the castle, was in shambles. Most thought she was odd, for she shed no tears as she ambled through the sea of red and brown.

_Dirt and blood, but not dirty blood._

Her mother used to sing her a lullabye, of ninety-nine red balloons that would fly by. They caused panic, started a war, and Luna adored it because it was her mother who would sing it.

She skipped through the courtyard, eyeing the line of bodies. There was no distinction between good or evil. They were all the same here lying on the ground.

_Dead_.

She walked past the group of redheads. Her dear friends and neighbors all in different stages of grief. The matriarch, Molly Weasley, was collapsed in her husband's arms, bawling. Ginny held Harry tight while Percy muttered "it should have been me."

George just sat there, no tears, no words, just silent and staring into space.

Luna lay a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. He placed his hand atop hers and looked up to her face and she gave him a watery smile.

She walked away, cast a spell to give him a red balloon, floating in the air attached to the wrist on his shoulder. He looked bewildered but shrugged. She was Luna, and he knew it was her way of supporting him in his grief.

Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks lay next to each other, hands grasping each other. _This is war_, Luna sung while she kneeled where there hands clasped. She allowed herself to cry a few short moments while thinking about the young boy who wouldn't get to know his parents.

She was reminded of her own mother and although she was gone, at least she had a few years with her; could remember her. Her song, it called to her, and so moved on. The line of dead went on.

She cast a balloon for each of her dear friends. The balloons swayed in the air, strings wrapping around the other, brushing against each other, like a lover's caress. A final kiss before they depart into the afterlife.

_Another red balloon_.

A few paces down, a silver mask lay shattered. Near it was the tortured hand hidden under black robes. Antonin Dolohov, with his snarled face, did not look at peace, and this made Luna sad. She kneeled down next to him and laid her hands upon his eyes, so that he may rest.

There is no difference between good and evil when the only difference is between being alive or dead.

He was dead.

He looked peaceful with his eyes closed and relaxed lips. Luna pondered how he could have been if he lived a different life. A different time. If there were no red balloons calling him off to war.

She attached a balloon to his mask. It didn't float away. Just swayed in the gentle breeze of the aftermath of battle.

Not far from one Death Eater was another, body contorted in such a way it took her a moment to realize who it was. She had to roll the man over to lay on his back so she could maneuver him so that his final rest would be in peace.

It's a shame that ancient Purebloods thought Muggle-borns as red balloons. Her mother's voice was singing, whispering in her ear, _Flash the message, something's out there_.

It's a shame that we fear that which we do not know.

But Luna knows better, her mother had seen to that. She knew that people thought she was odd because of her father, believing in that which there was no proof.

_No proof in its existence does not mean it does not exist._

A Muggle-born may not know where their magic came from, but they still had magic.

Lavender Brown was next, her face mauled almost beyond recognition. Her hair, that she so prided once, was matted and bloodied. Luna cast a spell to untangle and clean her hair and tied it in a ribbon, a red balloon attached.

Collin Creevy, no camera in sight. Luna thought it a shame that his most prized possession was not with him at the end. She transfigured a rock near his shoe and strapped it to his neck. She tied another red balloon around its lense and let herself shed another tear.

Scabior's body is scratched and crushed, pieces of the castle still piercing his skin. She shudders at the body, reminded of her stay at Malfoy Manor. _He is dead, and you are alive_, she nods to herself. She pauses to spell his body respectable and gives him one of her balloons then moves on.

Another body, one she didn't recognize. _Was this someone on our side? Or there's?_

It doesn't matter, she reminds herself. _They all the same when they're dead_.

Fifty bodies, and laid to rest. Good, evil, they're all the same, in the end they are all dead fighting for a cause.

_If only ninety-nine didn't cause a worry, super-scurry, for them to call the troops in a hurry,_ her mother's voice tickles her ear.

She looked back at the line of dead. Bodies laid out to be mourned, ridiculed, revered, and jeered.

The floors are brown and red.

_Dirt and blood, but not dirty blood_, she reminds herself. She hopes that everyone else can see. Blood is blood, and the only difference is alive or dead.

_Now it's all over _and Luna wonders what will happen next. She eyes the aftermath once more, marred by the red of her balloons.

_Just to prove the world was here_. "They were all here," she whispers to no one.

The balloons she so casually spelled float just a metre above each body, dancing to the tune within Luna's head.

She hums out loud the song her mother used to sing to her as she conjures a final balloon.

_I think of you and let it go_.

It flies up into the air, high above the aftermath of battle. It cuts through the clouds and one after another, each balloon follows.

_There is no difference between good and evil when the only difference is between being alive or dead._


End file.
